A life-long resident of the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Dale Ivan Smith has his mother to thank for his love of science fiction and fantasy. When he was five, he glimpsed the cover of a paperback sci-fi novel she was reading and was immediately interested. (It had a giant radioactive spider on the cover.) When he was fifteen, she loaned him her collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom novels and he devoured them in short order.

He got into trouble in grade school for sneaking off to the library during class, so naturally he wound up working as a librarian for the Multnomah County Library system in Portland, Oregon.

He's been writing fiction since he was a kid. He's had stories published in Perihelion Science Fiction, Everyday Fiction, 10Flash Quarterly, and on the Toasted Cake podcast. The Empowered is his first novel series, beginning with Empowered: Agent.

When he isn't writing or reading fantasy and science fiction, he's playing board games, practicing yoga, and obeying his feline overlords.